How have I not posted since the 6th? Weird, doesn't feel that long. Anyways, last night was a Blogger Cash Game gathering. It was $1/2 deepstacks, so originally I wasn't going to play because my bankroll really couldn't handle it. But thanks to a recent bankroll boost, I decided that I could gambool a bit. It started off great, because I was planning on just playing with $200 and not the full $400 buy-in; unfortunately I still had the auto top off feature turned on, so as soon as I sat in, Full Tilt was kind enough to boost me up to the full $400. Doh. So it was either play, or leave the table and sit back in again. Unfortunately there was already a waiting list going, and I didn't want to have to wait an hour or more to sit back down again, so I just sucked it up and hoped I didn't get stack.

Even better was that I had this aggrotard sitting to my left. I'm not going to pretend that I played well at all, because I didn't. I'm not a great cash player to begin with, and on top of that, I was sitting at a table full of people who are much more successful cash players and play at higher levels than me. So I was definitely in a -EV situation, but blogger cash games are fun, so it's all good.

I played about 150 hands over a couple hours, and let me just say, my cards were simply awful. Up until the last orbit or so, I had seen 99 three times, 77 twice, and 44 and 33 once. Those were all the pocket pairs I had. I finally got KK a little before I finished up (I'll discuss later), but really, not much going on. Didn't get AK once. But hey, I got the JackAce 4 times. Whee. I was already playing pretty tight poker as it was, so the crap cards didn't really help.

Okay, so The Poker Gnome can get pretty aggressive, particularly when he's in position. I opted to check here, feeling like I was ahead, and full expecting to have to call a bet.

*** RIVER *** [Kc ] []
Mike_Maloney checks
smizmiatch has 15 seconds left to act
smizmiatch has requested TIME
smizmiatch bets $70
Mike_Maloney has 15 seconds left to act
Mike_Maloney has requested TIME
Mike_Maloney calls $70
*** SHOW DOWN ***
smizmiatch shows [4s 2s] a pair of Fours
Mike_Maloney shows [] a pair of Aces
Mike_Maloneywins the pot ($234) with a pair of Aces
smizmiatch adds $117

The river was probably a blank, but I tanked for a while trying to decide where I was at. I actually probably misjudged Gnome's range here, and I wasn't keeping it wide enough, as it's entirely possible for him to be holding something like T8. AA, KK, and AK are all possibilities I suppose, but I would think he might be likely to 3-bet preflop, and I wasn't feeling any of those hands postflop. I don't think he'd call with a weaker ace, like A10 or A8, because unless you hit 2 pair, you really run into kicker issues on an A-high flop. 44 is a possible holding, 88 or TT I think I would have been 3-bet preflop. All in all, there wasn't anything that I was real scared of, and like I said, I really felt like Gnome was just using his aggression to make a move on me since I had been playing so passive. I think I like my read there, although I'm certainly open to criticism.

Next 30 or so hands I had absolutely nothing to play, so I used my uberweaktight image to get Bone_Daddy to lay down an overpair:

I felt like my 3-bet would carry some legitimacy to it because of how few hands I had played. Raggy flop, I figured I should keep it up and bet out strong. I didn't think BD was as strong as JJ, but I was surprised that he was willing to lay it down.

Nothing of real significance after that for a while, a few positional take downs, stuff like that. As time went on we had a few non-bloggers infiltrate our table, and I decided to take one out:

Funny that I called here, because recently I've been mulling over a poor play I made smooth calling with KK preflop. Situation here is a little different, though, and I think I could have gone either way. I was a little concerned about flat-calling, because I didn't want to have a bunch of people call after me. However, as I've mentioned, I was playing really tight, and my 3-bet above was one of only 2 times I think all session that I had 3-bet, and the only time I did it preflop, so I thought a 3-bet here would look really suspicious and could kill my action. Ultimately that was what swayed me to just call. I was secretly hoping that tulegit21 would try and squeeze on the button, because he had been aggressive in LP some in his short time at the table.

*** FLOP *** []
cmitch bets $14
Mike_Maloney has 15 seconds left to act
Mike_Maloneyraises to $28
cmitch: i guess my frat is back on campus now after getting kicked off for a while
tulegit21 raises to $56
cmitch folds
Mike_Maloney has 15 seconds left to act
cmitch: Delta Chi
Mike_Maloney calls $28

No real reason for the min-raise, to be honest. I was a little worried by tulegit's min-reraise, but the fact that he smooth called preflop made me think the only hand he could have that beat me was probably 55, and I didn't think there was enough of a chance of that for me to fold.

I would like to preface everything my making a note that when I checked, he insta-pushed. Didn't even hesitate. I read this as him being weak. As I said, I didn't put him on any mid-to-high pocket pairs, because I would have expected a 3-bet preflop. 9-10 is probably the hand I fear most, but I'm not sure if he instapushes there. QJ might be possible. In the end, the push looked to me like he felt I was weak, or at least weak enough to fold to that kind of action. Because of that, and because of what I felt his range was, I thought there was a good enough chance that I was ahead to make the call. Turns out he was actually pretty strong, but I dodged any outs and picked up a nice pot.

I played another orbit or so, until I donked out of the tournaments I was playing in at the same time, and called it a night. All in all I won $270, which I'm obviously going to be pretty happy with. Actually, it's funny, I've only played one other blogger cash game, and it was last August, also at 200NL. I crushed that game thanks to one particular donk, who I put all-in twice while holding AA and KK, and finished up $300 at the end of the night (Recap is here). So what's the lesson here? Play tight, blogger games are EZ.